At the end of five days of hearing, the Isère Assize Court sentenced Kelly Laboire on Friday evening to ten years in prison for the death of her companion Valentin Delobel.
She finally reclassified the facts from “
murder by spouse
” to “
intentional violence with a weapon resulting in death without intention of causing it
”.
The victim's family said they were relieved that self-defense was not ruled out.
On May 18, 2020, the accused, then aged 24, was arrested by the gendarmes in Sainte-Marie du Mont (Isère) after stabbing her companion Valentin Delobel in the chest.
This seasonal couple then lives confined in a mobile home lent by a relative after losing their job due to the pandemic.
Behind the closed doors of the vehicle, the lovers, consumers of cannabis and alcohol, argue daily.
Insults and blows rained down reciprocally, until that fateful night, when Valentin Delobel, father of a little boy now aged 8, was stabbed to death.
Since then, she has always claimed to have acted in self-defense.
“The drama could have happened either way”
During the trial, one of her lawyers, Me Florian Medico, claimed that his client had “
took the knife like a shield and said stop.
The tragedy could have happened either way in a split second.
There, it went in that direction.
» An argument that the jurors seem to have partly heard, by reclassifying the facts and thus allowing him to escape life imprisonment.
To the press, the lawyer for Valentin Delobel's family, Me Herbé Gerbi, stressed that the young woman had "
committed a final scene of violence on Valentin, and was not able to benefit from any supporting fact, self-defense having been dismissed by the court.
»
But the criminal lawyer wonders about the reclassification: “
Did the situation of Valentin, victim of domestic violence committed by his partner, benefit from the legal treatment expected within the protective framework that society grants to the couple?
» For her part, the attorney general had requested fifteen years of imprisonment against Kelly Laboire, considering that it was indeed a “
murder of a spouse
”.
The public prosecutor's office, like the accused, now has ten days to appeal the verdict.